Brixham is just such another town as Newlyn or Port Isaac, for its streets are narrow and winding, and there are flights of stone steps here and there which add considerably to the picturesqueness of the place.

Brixham can easily be visited at the same time as Dartmouth, which is dealt with on another page.  Totnes can also be reached by taking the train to Paignton, whence run two omnibuses at various intervals throughout the day.  It is a delightful drive, occupying less than an hour.  Totnes has a very quaint little main street which rises steeply from the bridge over the Dart.  Near the highest portion the roadway is crossed by one of the old gateways of the town.  This feature and the many quaint gabled houses give a charm to the place, making it attractive to all who love old architecture.  Fragments of the old walls, a second gateway, and the shell of the castle, which is possibly pre-Norman, are also in existence.

[Illustration:  Photochrom Co., Ltd.

BRIXHAM HARBOUR.

Showing the statue of William of Orange on the spot where he landed in 1688.]

CONWAY CASTLE

=How to get there.=—­From Euston Station.  L. and N.W.  Railway. =Nearest Station.=—­Conway. =Distance from London.=—­225 miles. =Average Time.=—­6-1/2 hours.

                     1st 2nd 3rd
=Fares.=—­Single 35s. 9d. 20s. 7d. 18s. 8d. 
          Return 65s. 0d. 36s. 6d. 33s. 0d.

=Accommodation Obtainable.=—­“Castle Hotel,” “Erskine Arms,”
  “Bridge Hotel,” “Harp Hotel,” “Aberconway Temperance
  Hotel” (old house containing coffee-room dated 1400), and others.
=Alternative Route.=—­Train from Paddington, via Chester.  Great
  Western Railway.

The castle at Conway is one of the noblest fortresses in the kingdom, the only one to approach it in size being the famous building at Carnarvon.  The present town of Conway has gradually sprung up round the castle, built by Edward I. in 1284 to intimidate the Welsh.  It was unsuccessfully besieged by them in 1290.  At the commencement of the Parliamentarian War, the castle was garrisoned for the King by Williams, Archbishop of York, but was taken by Mytton in 1646.  The building was comparatively unhurt during the war, but the lead and timber were removed at the Restoration by Lord Conway, who dismantled the beautiful fortress in a most barbarous manner, and the edifice was allowed to fall more or less into decay.

The castle stands on the verge of a precipitous rock on the south-east of the town, one side bounded by the river, a second by a tidal creek; the other frontages overlook the town.  It constitutes part of the walls of Conway, which, with the castle, form the finest examples extant of thirteenth-century military fortification.  The castle itself was a perfect specimen of a fortress, with walls of enormous thickness, flanked by eight huge embattled towers.  There are some traces still remaining of the royal features of “Queen Eleanor’s Oratory.”